<p>  </p> <p><strong>Abstract</strong></p> <p><br></p> <p>Students with mild disabilities are often taught in an integrated class setting where they are provided additional support and accommodations while remaining in general education classes with their non-disabled peers. These students often have high-incidence disabilities (e.g. learning disabilities, emotional disabilities, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, and some other health impairments), and have a unique set of characteristics that create challenges for academic and social growth (Stelitano et al., 2019; Trainor et al., 2016). Recent research has shown that exposure to social emotional learning and the 16 Habits of Mind has been beneficial for students with mild disabilities, however teachers are struggling to implement these ideologies in addition to their traditional responsibilities (Jones et al., 2017; Dyson et al., 2019; Cueso & Harrison, 2012). The 16 Habits of Mind are a set of 16 problem-solving, life-related skills that promote personal growth and success (Costa & Kallick, 2000). </p> <p><br></p> <p>The present study was conducted as a requirement of a master’s degree in special education. There are two sub projects: administrating an anonymous survey through Qualtrics and developing an instruction manual. The purpose of the study was to determine teachers’ understanding and experience of social emotional learning and the 16 Habits of Mind and to identify obstacles that prevent teachers from implementing such practices in their classrooms. Twenty-eight licensed teachers recruited from a Title I, public, high school answered the 13 survey questions. The analysis of the results addressed three research questions, (1) What understanding and experience do teachers have about social emotional learning for high school students with mild disabilities?, (2) What understanding and experience do teachers have about using the 16 Habits of Mind with high school students with mild disabilities?, and (3) What kinds of supports (e.g. administrative, district-level, building-level, online resources) are in place to help teachers implement social emotional learning for students with mild disabilities? </p> <p><br></p> <p>Results from the study show that teachers occasionally implemented social emotional learning, and they are confident in their ability to do so, but there were factors that limited regular implementation. Teachers were concerned with the time requirement of social emotional learning, and the support available within their building when navigating sensitive subjects. Many participating teachers had heard of Costa and Kallick’s (2000) 16 Habits of Mind and teach many of the concepts informally through daily practices and routines. A majority of teachers reported teaching three habits formally and often within their classrooms: Striving for Accuracy (50%; N=24), Questioning and Posing Problems (60.87%; N=23), and Applying Past Knowledge to New Situations (54.17%; N=24). When asked to identify which habits were most influential to student success, 20% (N=19) of teachers identified persistence as most important. Teachers’ testimonies showed that using the 16 Habits of Mind as a tool to drive social emotional learning could be beneficial, but, they expressed concerns about being able to blend concepts with existing curriculum without neglecting instruction time.</p> <p><br></p> <p>Using the survey results, a handbook was created to support teachers in implementing the 16 Habits of Mind, as a tool for social emotional learning, into their classroom. The handbook contains the following sections: Students with Mild Disabilities, Social Emotional Learning, The Habits of Mind, Implementation Suggestions, and a detailed outline for each habit. For each of the 16 habits the outline included the following items: Objectives, Relevant Vocabulary, Definition, Application to Learning, Quote, Daily Practices, 1-3 Mini-Lesson Plans, and Journal/Discussion Questions. The hope is that the handbook will provide a resource for teachers, so they feel more comfortable integrating the 16 Habits of Mind into daily curriculum without compromising instruction time. For teachers that would like to go above and beyond, the mini-lesson plans provide activities that can deepen student understanding of the habit and only require 5-15 minutes of class time. In order to develop a handbook that would be most effective for teacher use, it was reviewed by university faculty and licensed special education teachers. After review minor adjustments were made for teacher use and benefit.  </p>

As political polarity and social divisiveness increase in the United States, more organizations and scholars are calling on institutions of higher education to rise to the occasion and incorporate into their objectives the development of competent citizenship (The National Task Force). Writing classrooms are particularly suited to these kinds of objectives as writing already proposes relationships between rhetor and audience that have ethical dimensions and require mutual honesty, accountability, and respect (Duffy, "The Good Writer"). Additionally, the Framework for Success, a document that has become central to shaping the goals of writing classrooms, articulates habits of mind, like openness and engagement, that lend themselves to healthy, productive citizenship and civic interactions. However, the inherence of these qualities and potential in writing classrooms is not always recognized or actualized. Instructors need a reliable pedagogical framework to guide their objectives and choices so that students develop citizenship competencies through their writing experiences. The theory of experiential learning (EL) is one promising avenue for such a pedagogical method. This thesis explains keys to understanding EL theory and implementing them in traditional classrooms and details lived examples from two classrooms that illustrate how EL in practice can help students develop habits of mind that in turn contribute to citizenship competencies.

This arts-based research study is an examination of the influence of drama education on the development of high school students. Five recent graduates were interviewed (including the researcher) about their high school drama experiences. All participants had been selected for this study because they have been impacted as a result of their time in/with drama. Culminating in a script, the research takes the form of an arts-based playwriting inquiry, shaped by A/r/tography and rhizomatic influences, making use of Barone and Eisner’s five phase creative process. Adhering to an Aristotelean story arc outlined by Martini, metaphor in the four-scene play is used to explore and subsequently communicate concepts. In so doing, the researcher offers an expanded audience a renewed perspective on the impact that drama education has on the development of high school learners and invites viewers to consider drama’s impact on adolescent learners. Four main concepts were examined in the analysis: initiation, transition, habits of mind and, interdependency and it was found that these are central to all participants’ development. It was also found that learning contained within these four concepts, as experienced through drama education, has the potential to impact and equip students for life beyond high school. The process based, holistic learning central to drama education allowed participants to recognize and succinctly denote areas in their lives that were, and continue to be impacted by the dramatic experiences they took part in. / May 2017

The aim of this study is to show how a possible philosophy of life can arise from Bergson&rsquo / s conception of time. In realizing this aim, I appeal to Hadot&rsquo / s description of the paradox of the human condition. I claim that in order to understand how a Bergsonian philosophy of life through Bergson&rsquo / s conception of time would arise we need to understand the paradox of the human condition. The reason for this is that there are a lot of dualities in Bergson&rsquo / s philosophy all of which, I claim, are based on this fundamental duality concerning the human condition. I believe that when this paradox and its possible resolution are restated in Bergsonian notions, a Bergsonian philosophy of life that consists of a life sub specie durationis, that is a life under the aspect of duration, would arise. Hadot considered the paradox within the context of phenomenology alone. This made me proceed by searching for other approaches to the paradox within Bergson&rsquo / s philosophy. I realized that the attempts in finding out possible solutions to this problem cannot be found in the context of phenomenology alone and that the vitalist and the existentialist aspects have to be considered in order to remain faithful to Bergson&rsquo / s philosophy as well as in order to construct a Bergsonian philosophy of life. The phenomenological aspect of the paradox arises around Bergson&rsquo / s notion of displacement of attention and when the notion of dur&eacute / e r&eacute / elle is considered with consciousness in the light of the notion of intensity. The vitalist aspect enters into our discussion when we analyze Bergson&rsquo / s notion of &eacute / lan vital around the consideration of true evolution. I believe that the existentialist aspect of the paradox of the human condition comes from Bergson&rsquo / s notion of freedom around the discussion of the superficial and the fundamental self. It emerges if the individual asks himself how to deal with this paradox that in turn defines his struggle to transform the tension the paradox involves and that tells him to bring his own attitude towards it.

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A growing body of writing research suggests college students’ and teachers’ conceptualizations of writing play an important role in learning to write and making the transition from secondary to post-secondary academic composition. First-year college writers are not blank slates; rather, they bring many assumptions and beliefs about academic writing to the first-year writing classroom from exposure to a wide range of literate practices throughout their lives. Metaphor acts as a way for scholars to trace students’ as well as their instructors’ assumptions and beliefs about writing. In this study, I contend that metaphor is a pathway to meta-cognitive awareness, mindfulness, and reflection. This multi-method descriptive study applies metaphor analysis to a corpus of more than a dozen first-year composition students’ endof-semester writing portfolios; the study also employs an auto-ethnographic approach to examining this author’s texts composed as a graduate student and novice teacher. In several cases writing students in this study appeared to reconfigure their metaphors for writing and subsequently reconsider their assumptions about writing. My literature review and analysis suggests that metaphor remains an underutilized inventive and reflective strategy in composition pedagogy. Based on these results, I suggest that instructors consider how metaphoric competence might offer writers and writing instructors an alternate means for operationalizing key habits of mind such as meta-cognitive awareness, reflection, openness to learning, and creativity as recommended in the Framework for Success in Post-Secondary Writing. Ultimately, I argue that writers and teachers might benefit from adopting a more flexible attitude towards metaphor. As a rhetorical trope, metaphors are contextual and, thus, writers need to learn to mix, discard, create, and obscure metaphors as required by the situation.

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<p>Professional engineers think and act in distinctive ways when addressing engineering problems. Students need to develop this reasoning or engineering thinking during their education. Unfolding the undergraduate students’ thinking is a necessary step in designing experiences and teaching materials that foster not only their understanding of engineering concepts but also their learning to think as professional engineers. While there are previous studies about the students' thinking in other disciplines, more research is needed in engineering. This three-study dissertation aims to further our comprehension of undergraduate students’ engineering thinking using an adapted version of the Engineering Habits of Mind (EHoM) model. Specifically, the dissertation’s studies work together to continue the research that addresses the question:<em> What are the characteristics of undergraduate students</em>’ <em>engineering thinking?</em></p> <p><br></p> <p>The first study used naturalistic inquiry to holistically explore the cognition associated with the EHoM of senior chemical engineering students when improving a chemical plant. The analysis of students’ interactions showed that their redesign process followed an iterative co-evolution of the problem and solution spaces. Furthermore, they treated the task as a socio-technical problem considering engineering and non-engineering factors. In addition, while exploring problem and solution entities, they used multiple representations to communicate ideas but had difficulties translating symbolic representations into more physical, concrete representations. Regardless the technical issues and time constraints, the students completed the conceptual redesign and communicated their proposal to the client.</p> <p><br></p> <p>The second study used qualitative content analysis to examine first-year engineering students’ ideation as a cognitive skill associated with the EHoM of problem finding and creative problem solving. Particularly, it focused on students’ ideation of questions and recommendations when doing data analytics to help improve a client’s enterprise. The analysis of students’ reports showed that they expanded the problem space of the task by bringing additional information that was not provided. They asked questions focused on performing statistical analysis of the dataset and requesting information about the company’s business model. At the end of their data analytics, students made high- and low-quality recommendations considering their alignment with a specific problem, robust evidence, and the client’s needs. </p> <p><br></p> <p>The third study used qualitative descriptive research to investigate undergraduate participants' cognitive competencies within engineering systems thinking at the International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) competition. These competencies are associated with the EHoM of problem finding, creative problem solving, systems thinking, and visualization. Mainly, the study focused on analyzing the evidence of cognitive competencies documented in the publicly available participants’ wikis where they registered their design process. Results showed that iGEM teams developed solutions with biological systems interacting with other systems and used concepts and tools from multiple disciplines. They also cooperated with stakeholders, which helped them analyze their system from multiple lenses. Moreover, depending on their upfront task, they fluidly represented their systems from structural, behavioral, and functional perspectives. </p> <p><br></p> <p>The final chapter of this dissertation presents an overarching discussion across the studies. The findings and implications will support curriculum designers, instructors, and other interested readers to prepare learning environments that promote undergraduate students’ engineering thinking. Furthermore, they may guide future efforts to continue exploring the students' thinking process when addressing engineering problems. </p>

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